I think that that has to do with production tolerances. Measured while using the standard 7.4V battery, just charged (8,4V). The RX filtercurve is somewhat stretched out to the upper frequency, but it is not off-frequency. On RX, the RF filtering is not narrowed (although the audio output volume is slightly higher). FM-Narrow is only for the modulation deviation on TX. But that’s very deep in the noise! I don’t have much out of the band strong signals in my neighborhood. But okay, on 2m, the 897 is seems somewhat better, probably because the noise level is quite high on my antenna. In comparison with my FT-897D (from 2005), the differences are very marginal. I have to test that in more depth, but my first impressions are positive. Conclusion: the sensitivity is very good and quite equal on all frequencies. This is an average for all frequencies, but actually measured in the 2m and the 70cm band.
Mine is produced end of 2012 and bought in June 2013.ĭeviation: 3kHz, 1kHz tone, 12dB SINAD: 0.14µV (-124dBm) Probably (and I really don’t know!), there are differences between older and newer models. There are a lot of discussions going on about the performance of the receiver. > Update: in 2015 (October), I bought a new one, the UV-5R+ (UV5R plus): some improvements have been made: on the newer model, the S-meter does have a real signal strength indication and the audio sounds a bit better. The first evening after I got this little transceiver in my hands, I’ve done some measurements. In june 2013 I bought this Baofeng handheld transceiver directly from China. The results can differ somewhat exemplary. This review is about the UV-5RE model with firmware BFB299.